Description: A girl, Vivian Smith, is kidnapped while being evacuated from London during World War II, and is caught up in a struggle to preserve history. A Tale of Time City was first published in 1987 by British author Diana Wynne Jones. It tells the story of a girl, Vivian Smith, who is kidnapped while being evacuated from London during World War II and caught up in a struggle to preserve history. In this novel, Jones explains time travel with more reference to our current understanding of science than she does in many of her other works.